


Roses Are (Blood) Red

by NoelleAngelFyre



Series: The Game [11]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Gotham (TV)
Genre: Candelight Dinners, Canon Typical Violence (mentioned/hinted at), F/M, Romantic Evenings, Valentine's Day, William Blake poem (referenced)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 12:26:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6006019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoelleAngelFyre/pseuds/NoelleAngelFyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Valentine's Day is the one day Victor Zsasz does not commit murder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roses Are (Blood) Red

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Valentine’s Day will go down in history as the one day of the year Victor Zsasz does not commit murder.

For him, there is a history behind this holiday, and not one that includes cheap cut-out hearts suspended from window ledges and rafters, confetti randomly cast upon perfect strangers without a decent apology, advertisements for flowers and chocolate, and pink. Pink. Everywhere. Unrelenting, unyielding, obnoxiously inordinate amounts of _pink_.

No. For Victor, _Le Jour D’Amour_ is a special day, worthy of respect and deference, and a certain degree of gentility. This was a day celebrated throughout his childhood nearly with the same joyous wonder as Christmas. A day when he would awaken to the sweet aroma of baked goods in the kitchen, hot cocoa set up in three mugs, each with a fresh garnish of whipped cream, and his parents already awake in the living room. Every morning began the same: his mother would present her husband with a new pen, the finest quality available and engraved with his initials, and his father would return the gift with a new piece of jewelry. Sometimes it was a simple bracelet; others, it would be an elegant collection of jewels adorning a silver or gold chain. There would be flowers, a handsome bouquet hand-selected by his father, which Mother would then place atop the grand piano and admire for a content moment.

They would spend the day inside: Father reading, Mother playing the piano, and Victor, as a young child, spread across the carpet, eagerly devouring books, with the dog dozing nearby. There would be a light lunch, perhaps a game or two of chess, and then at the five o’clock hour, everyone would depart to their given rooms and prepare for the evening. Dressed only in their finest, Mother and Father would then take him to dinner at their favorite restaurant. When he grew older, Victor would be left to his own devices at home while Mother and Father enjoyed the evening, but by then, he’d had nearly ten years of observing a night of fine dining, a little wine, and dancing.

Carrying on the tradition was not something he chose to do, following their deaths. He’s never really explored why. Perhaps the memories were too painful even for the tender warmth of nostalgia. Perhaps his new career consumed too much of his time. Perhaps—and this, honestly, is the most likely reason of all—he simply didn’t have a special lady at his side, the kind who would appreciate the finer things in life with graciousness, not selfishness, and could match him in a sophisticated, refined, elegant upbringing.

As of late, the circumstances have changed.

It warrants mentioning, of course, that he’s restoring to something which hasn’t been a part of his life in many a year: gambling. When the lady in question is keeping quite busy purging half a city’s worth of companies and adjacent businesses, refurnishing a manor to her liking, and has a profound hatred for Valentine’s Day, crafting an evening to remember that happens to fall on said holiday is quite a gamble.

But, as the saying goes, Life is nothing without risk involved.

***

Gotham is not a city known for celebrating the holidays with any kind of great expense. Christmas is an exception, for being the time of year when the eternally optimistic finally get their time to shine and convince the remaining population to hope and believe in kindness, love, and good will towards men. The city is brightly lit, the streets somehow become much cleaner under the snowfall, and people in general adopt much more pleasant mannerisms. Christmas is the wonderful time of year when hearts are touched, near and far, far and wide, and there’s peace on earth in a city which, at any other time of year, spits in the face of such notions.

Comparatively, the other holidays are regarded with the enthusiastic label of “What day?” by those who really could care less and are highly affronted by the rare few throwing displays of holiday cheer in their faces. Victor, ordinarily, is among the former, though he has perfected a much more effective, and permanent, way of handling those who invade his personal space. He might, perhaps, possibly, be persuaded to demonstrate better manners on Valentine’s Day, if for no other reason than to honor his parents’ memory, but the obscene presence of factory-processed decorations and _far too much pink_ cheapens the day’s very heart and soul. Just walking down the street fills him with the desire to both pray for forgiveness to his parents, that a day so very special to them now amounts to paper cut-outs and public humiliation of those not currently attached to “someone special,” and eviscerate the next person who showers him with pink confetti.

The preparations for today begin early, at an hour most don’t consider worthy to deem “morning”. Businesses are open, even if the grand majority of their customers will not yet rise for three more hours, which ensures he has access to the fruit of the crop, the best selections available, before anyone else can have their pick. Ordinarily, he spends these early hours patrolling the streets, looking for some kind of refreshment to start the day while entertaining an inner monologue concerning humanity’s sloth, but not today. 

Today, he walks along the streets with an eye on the florist shops. Most, he’s seen before: little commercial chains whose owners somehow had the brilliant idea to put in Gotham; the ones that stay open longer than a week are the strongest of the litter, even if they have to put up with being robbed every other day. Others, the home-grown shops, are smaller and tucked away for the sake of self-preservation. After forty-five minutes, he settles on a little Mom-and-Pop shop, snugly nestled between a bakery and a stationary store.

He’s pleased with the choice as soon as he walks in, a little bell mounted atop the door chiming cheerfully at the day’s first guest. The floor is clean, the walls painted a warm color but otherwise bare, the displays clearly are well-maintained and tended to daily; these owners care more for the quality of their product than fancy advertisements cluttering up the windows and useless decorations. Almost immediately, a collection of roses catches his eye. Lush, crimson red; a kind of vibrant red that’s only found in the blood of the living, or in the scandalous shade of lipstick worn by _femmes de la nuit_. He looks over each one, studying with great care, then makes his selection, gloves protecting him from the thorns, and inhales thoughtfully. The aroma is nearly intoxicating.

A round-faced woman with salt-and-pepper hair, soft wrinkles lining her mouth and eyes, and sparkling gray eyes attends to his purchase. She offers him a vase for the flowers; he politely declines. But he does accept a lovely white silk ribbon to secure the arrangement. As she’s calculating the cost, his eyes drift to her neck, casually in place of his usual intent gaze. _One…two…three…_ she’s calm, perfectly at ease, without fear of the customer who is dressed more for a funeral than a day celebrating romance. Nor does she ask questions; no random inquiries about who or what the flowers are for, what his plans are for the rest of the day, and so on. He finds he likes her graceful neutrality. Discretion is the better part of valor, and all.

Across the street, a gaggle of school-age girls are headed for school, twittering about how many valentines they shall receive today, and from whom. It’s a rather appalling display. They ought to be grateful to receive just one, and preferably from some young man who won’t grow up to be anything less than a reputable citizen, if any still exist in this city.

He smirks, quietly, as a memory flits across his inner eye: that of a younger Iris, dressed in the academy uniform, walking from her classroom with a single pink-and-red card in hand. He’d watched her march straight to the trash bin, flick the card inside with two fingers, then turn and make for the back door. With such a display, inquiries had simply been mandatory.

_“A day originated with purposes of celebrating innocent, pure, and tender love,”_ she’d said, pulling her hair free of a clip and letting a chilled wind catch it, _“reduced to declarations of adoration on cheaply-decorated paper cards by individuals much too young and immature to know what such emotions even mean, or a nationally-ordained day to frolic about without care or consideration for public decency. The whole thing is a disgusting display.”_

He’d been far too entertained with her utterly adorable indignation and thus chose not to correct her, in any regard. _Not all people behave this way_ , he could have said, but would she have believed him then? He rather thinks she wouldn’t have.

*** 

Working for Don Falcone had provided quite a wealth of knowledge that Victor otherwise would have gone through life without. For example, when one wants to find the most luscious, one-of-a-kind, sinfully delectable chocolates, one goes to _Mary Sue’s_. Buried in the back of a small cake shop, at the edge of downtown, it was one of the Don’s absolute favorite indulgences. He’d been utterly taken with the owner, an Eastern European widow with cherub lips and the kind of sultry accent men find in their fantasies. Reports stated her husband died suddenly, widowing her far too young, left her a handsome fortune, and she’d used both it and her sweet smile while immigrating to America. Rumors were she had assisted to his sudden departure. Victor personally thinks the allure of a black widow, true or not, heavily contributed to Don Falcone’s admiration.

His appeal runs a different route. It’s all in the voice. He wasn’t previously aware of his attraction to European accents, but when Iris slips into Russian like a fine silk glove…he’s officially not responsible for his actions.

Mary Sue—no, that can’t be her birth-given name, but anonymity is the name of the game in Gotham—is waiting for him, dressed for the holiday in magenta, lace and ruffles tastefully arranged to both accentuate and flatter her figure, with pearls at her throat. The kind that would make a lovely tourniquet. He quietly licks his lips.

“You are Mr. Zsasz, yes?” she murmurs, accent coating her tongue and words like honey. When he nods, she delicately descends, fiddles around in a cabinet below, and then straightens with a box in hand. The exterior is red, to match the rose petals of his earlier purchase, and when she opens it for further inspection, the interior is black velvet. Tiny folds of crisp red paper line the bottom in square formations, and each one contains a chocolate.

“A very unique request.” She notes, though without suspicion or real curiosity, and closes the lid to wrap a red ribbon around it. Her fingers are artfully skilled in making a tight knot, then softening the image with a delicate bow. He admires the skill, and takes note of the bow’s shape for a short moment before she continues, “Thirteen, for most, is unlucky.”

He flashes his teeth in a smile. “I make my own luck.”

Her head tilts in a way that almost seems flirtatious, and the glimmer in her eyes most certainly communicates she finds him attractive, but she takes his payment and surrenders the package without further incident. It makes him wonder if there’s something etched across his forehead that indicates _taken_. He hopes there is. He likes the idea of it.

***

Setting foot inside her home without one of the two men designated by profession to greet her is odd, though not immediately grounds for alarm. However, continuing deeper into the foyer, first taking a look down the left hallway and then walking down the right, without any responsive sign of life, shifts the category from _odd_ to _concerning_. The lack of light certainly doesn’t help.

“Butch?” she calls, feeling rather like one of those foolish females in cheap horror films, wandering darkened halls while foreboding music thrums quietly in the background. She calls for him twice, Dimitri once, and even Selina, though she knows the latter is likely prowling Wayne Manor and waiting for the perfect moment to steal the budding billionaire for a night of reckless entertainment. No answers follow her inquiry, and she’s officially starting to feel the prick of anxiety.

Then, from the dining room, she hears the sharp _hiss_ of a struck match, then sees the soft burst of illumination cast off one wall and reflect on another. At the threshold, she is obliged to pause and try comprehending the sight before her: a dining table set out for two, the aroma of dinner cooking in the adjacent kitchen, and Victor, dressed in a black suit with sleek grey accents, lighting one of two candles framing a lavish bouquet of red roses on the table center.

“Where is everyone?” she asks, deciding to carefully ignore the scene and its’ unfortunate implications. If he doesn’t confirm her suspicions, he might live to see the morning light.

“I gave them the night off.” He answers mildly, calm as could be, and lights the next candle. She feels her fingers twitching at one side.

“Why?”

He straightens, facing her with the lit match still playing between two fingers; the flame highlights his gaze, wicked delight and primal hunger churned into one unidentified emotion, and she briefly forgets agitation when that gaze is directed at her. Her and her alone.

Then, with a sharp breath, he extinguishes the flame. The only remaining light are thin streams from the kitchen and soft glows from both candles, and he’s cast more in shadow than light. “I think you’re clever enough to guess, Iris.”

Yes, she is, and that’s enough to stir aggravation back to the surface. “Was there some point, during the last eight years,” she slowly asks, fingers steadily curling within the fabric of her blouse, “during which I failed to communicate my particular hatred for Valentine’s Day?”

“On the contrary, you communicated it quite explicitly.” He replies, in a remarkably good mood, and she entertains a brief wonder if there’s a dead body around here she doesn’t yet know about. “Of course, that implies I would never try and rectify your unfortunate feelings toward the matter. Naturally, you should know better.”

“Inspiring me to feel anything other than pure dislike for this holiday is a wasted task, Victor. Even one as…” she pauses, taking note of the elegant display for a moment before nudging her quiet intrigue aside, “…impressive as this.”

“Don’t underestimate me, _mon cher_.” He smirks. “There’s a box on your bed. Go and get changed. Dinner will be ready soon.”

***

It will occur to her, one of these days, to be concerned at how well he knows her measurements. Some women would call it flattering, a silent declaration of his attention to detail; others would call it “creepy” and a violation. She’s not sure which one fits better. Maybe one day, she’ll be bothered to ponder it closer.

Slipping into the dress is like descending into a warm bath: the silk is soft and coats her bare skin like creamy soap suds. The fabric drapes loose and graceful around her legs, hem brushing above the knee with a modest slit at one side, wraps securely around her upper half with a neckline baring soft hints of her chest, enough to tease but never be indecent, then collects at her left side with a jeweled clasp. The vibrant blue compliments her eyes, as do the soft diamond accents at her ears. She looks royal, elegant, of a refined upbringing, and for a moment, gazing at her reflection while carefully arranging her dark locks, it’s only too easy to forget the burdens of this lifestyle. She almost feels normal.

The scent of dinner wafts up to greet her from the moment she descends the stairs at the main floor, and her stomach eagerly answers. It’s hardly uncommon for her to go a full day without eating more than one meal a day, and the mouth-watering aromas of a home-prepared meal are enough to loudly remind her that food hasn’t touched her lips since early this morning—if half a biscuit and a cup of green tea qualifies as a meal.

Inside the dining room, he’s waiting for her with eyes running warmly over her vision. She wills herself not to quake under the intensity of his gaze, but she’d be the first to admit it would not leave her bereft to forgo dinner and engage in…other activities.

He must read her thoughts, because his mouth thins into a coy smirk, but he holds silence while extending a hand for hers, guiding her with perfect grace to the table, already laden with steaming platters and two wine glasses filled, and pulling out her chair. He keeps their hands entwined until she’s seated and drawn close to the table. These customs are not exceptionally foreign to her—in the public sphere, Marcus and Maria knew quite well how to conduct themselves and present with perfect manners—but she remembers the execution being done with arctic formality, and certainly Marcus never looked at his wife as Victor is currently looking at her.

“Am I to conduct myself as a proper lady, then?” she asks, watching as he takes the seat across from hers. The candlelight plays off the steel-grey accents to his suit. In a strange burst of memory, she remembers a child’s mind pondering if he owned another color to his wardrobe, other than the absence of it, and thinking it absurd, that he would never look as appropriate in another color. Now, seeing the answer to her unasked question, she tucks a tiny smile aside.

“When it’s the two of us, alone?” he replies, amusement playing at the corners of his mouth. “Heaven forbid.”

She feels the responsive smile split her lips before it can be stifled, for the sake of preserving her earlier irritation with his boldness, his brazen disregard for her feelings toward a holiday which has been cheapened and violated in nearly every possible sense, and finds herself equally incapable of staying angry with him. It seems to be a reoccurring theme between them, these days.

The image of him spending any great amount of time in the kitchen is nearly humorous, but as she cuts into her steak and savors the smoky seasoning, it ceases to be as amusing as it is fitting. Victor, in a room filled with sharpened cutlery, taking gleaming blades and making calculated incisions inside thick red meat, watching the juices slowly dribble free in diluted streams…no, this is not so difficult to imagine after all.

Dinner is both extravagant in its delightful palate and tasteful in its simplicity. They fall into easy conversation, talk of art and music and theater and literature—everything they once discussed in a simpler season of life—and eat. Steak, the meat still tinged red just as she likes it, with potatoes and steamed vegetables, warm rolls, fresh pineapple of origins she can’t imagine during this time of year, and wine. It’s the kind of cozy comfort she’s heard of, the way children hear things in fairytales or watch in television dramas filled with sugar-sweetness and blissful wonder: perhaps somewhere, in a world apart from the decaying sickness plaguing Gotham’s very core, these things exist. Not in this world, not in this place, but somewhere.

But this isn’t the first time the impossible has been placed at her fingertips.

When dinner is finished, he clears the table with impressive speed and swiftness, forbidding her to lift a finger to help, and returns with a curiously-shaped box. The red ribbon tied in a neat bow across the top is unraveled with a clever gesture—she doesn’t miss the way he delicately sets it aside for preservation—and then Victor removes the lid and glides the box towards her. Her eyebrows lift, lips curving in amused delight: a flawless layer of dark chocolate over thirteen individual raspberries.

He knows her so very well. 

“I have missed this.” She says, several long and pleasant minutes later. He’s in the middle of refilling her wine glass, and responds with a curious quirk of the brow before replenishing his own drink. “Us. I have missed us being like this. Together.”

“You make us sound like an old married couple.” He replies, naked brow lifted with amusement.

She takes a careful sip. The wine is sweet, and so she treats it with due respect. However the evening is to end, she will be relatively sober for it. “Not yet.” She murmurs. “But, in some ways, we always have been.”

Her words make him pause, with more attention and seriousness this time. She stalls only briefly, rolling another chocolate over her tongue and swallowing it with another taste of wine, then exhales tightly and rests both elbows atop the polished surface. “When we first met, it was simple. By no means was it normal, or conventional, but it was simple. Even when you were at my uncle’s beck and call, still you were there when I needed you. And in the rare event you arrived after the fact,” she pauses, bitter memories fighting for recollection before she shoves them aside, “you still kept your promise and avenged me. You were my protector, my mentor, and you were my closest friend. Sometimes, the way it felt when you touched me, held me, spoke to me…it was enough to make me believe in guardian angels.”

Victor huffs out a sharp and unamused sound. “I’d like to know which Bible you read, Iris.” He says, with another drink. “Where blood is a permanent stain on angels’ hands.”

She barely blinks at his dismissive tone. “Have you bothered to consider my childhood?” she asks, leaning forward. “There was no God in that place. _God_ was the talk of polished preachers in a church or sidewalk prophets on the street. _God_ was the one who abandoned the forsaken and forlorn in this city. _God_ was the one responsible for crafting me in the womb of a woman who tried to kill me no less than ten times before I was even born. By the time we met, what little thought I spared for God was laced with bitterness and agonized questions of _why_. Perhaps, had you not walked through the front doors that night, I might have eventually come to hate Him as I did the rest of humanity who saw fit to look the other way and not see what was so abundantly clear before them.”

Silence follows her short breath, but his gaze is intently focused on her, and she takes his lack of response as encouragement. “I did not know a God worthy of adoration, not for thirteen years. And then you appeared. You spared me. You raised me. You protected me. In time, you came to love me. Whether or not you came from the God of saints and religious scholars does not matter. You gave me a God to believe in: the kind who sends bloodstained angels into places where the pure refuse to go. Who sees one more wretched soul amongst the rest and decides she is worth saving.”

With slow grace, she rises from the chair and takes calculated steps around the table. His eyes never waver, watching with a predator’s rapt attention, and follows the movement as she offers both hands to him, palms down, fingers lightly spread. “Do you remember?” she whispers.

Silence, but this time he joins her, hands taking hold before he’s even on his feet. A solitary forward step leaves barely a breath of space between them, and suddenly they are in a different place, at a different time. Her uncle is still at the peak of his reign in Gotham, Victor is still in his employ and under his command, and his orders are to keep Don Falcone’s only living heir safe before the vultures, bitter from Marcus DeLaine’s failures, descend and rip her apart. Her apartment with James Gordon is not safe, and so she is in Victor’s small loft, tucked away from the world in darkness and candlelight. His hands direct placement: one of hers at his shoulder, one of his at her waist, and the two remaining with fingers entwined by his instigation.

_“Don’t look at the floor.”_ He says, when her eyes frequently dart downward to determine proper placement and try to determine which way to move next. _“Look at me.”_

“Trust me.” Victor whispers, here and now, within the candlelit warmth of a dining room, one hand resting at her mid-back, the other ensnaring hers in a solid grasp, and all concept of propriety are abandoned in the past. He brings her close, flush to his chest, and her free hand slides up his clothed back and finds a place between his shoulder blades. 

_Trust me._ Trust him to lead the dance, surrender the control to which she clings desperately in life, throughout every day, lest it slip through her fingers and be stolen forever. During her tenure at the precinct, many accused her of having control issues. They didn’t know the half of it, nor did they ever know the origin of said issues, nor did they care.

Her tiger knows. It is why, among more obvious reasons, he so thoroughly enjoys stripping her of control. Most nights, she resists, fights and claws her way to the top. Tonight…tonight, she thinks, there are just a few too many spells cast, all of them working in his favor, and surrender feels a far better option.

She knows Victor recognizes her submission, when his blue eyes flash and then darken, but it’s without the smugness she was expecting. He says nothing, nor does he proceed with eager haste that, after nearly three months without physical intimacy, would be warranted. He keeps her close and leads her in a perfect waltz to the music playing softly from the gramophone in the far left corner. His eyes never drift from hers, gaze intent, smoldering, and she wonders if they are dancing through fire.

“You never answered my question.” She whispers; the naked strip of his brow quirks a little in silent inquiry. “Why did you propose? Why do you want me as your wife?”

Now, the left corner of his mouth lifts in some unidentified expression between smirk and smile; it speaks of amusement, and perhaps something else. She has a sudden and rather inexplicable desire to kiss that odd little upward curve. And she does, for a moment longer than needed. He keeps her there yet a moment more, then withdraws enough to whisper against her lips, “I _hate_ your last name.”

Is the answer sarcastic or its’ own brand of brutal honesty? Perhaps it is neither. Perhaps it is both. She can’t find it within her to care, not when something warm, something so incredibly soothing and reassuring and almost unbearably wonderful, is bubbling up from unknown depths and spreading, fanning outward through her veins, pumped with each beat of her heart. For the first time in far too long, the ground feels stable under her feet. There is no little pebble under her heel, half a step away from upending her world and sending her on a downward spiral. There are no threats, no wild dogs barking and howling outside her door—though, _yes, they still are, and they may always be_ —in this moment. Everything makes sense. Everything makes perfect sense.

“I have missed you.” She breathes. There are far more implications on her tongue this time, and he hears them like a musician hears pitch.

His mouth brushes the soft curve of her cheek, then makes a ghosting path along her jaw and throat; at her pulse, he pauses and presses his face to the skin, molding flesh to flesh, drawing in her scent, parting lips over her soft flesh and lightly suckling. The sensation makes her gasp, then moan; her fingers contract against him. One hand ascends, shivering fingers crawling upward to curl over his shoulder. In the flickering candlelight, she sees the jewels of her ring dance with spirits of their own.

_“I have seen this ring before.”_ She said, and indeed she had, in the solitary portrait of his parents still in his possession: an elegant depiction, a rich ivory backdrop to highlight their figures, and at the left ring finger of his mother, this wondrous ensemble of sapphires and diamonds within silver encasement. To have her lover produce it, without warning and without indication of where, exactly, he’d been keeping it all these years since his parents’ untimely passing, had been a shock. When he slipped it onto her finger, the fit unnaturally perfect, as though it had been made for only two hands to ever wear it, she’d nearly wept. There had been a sense of absolute peace settling in her core, a spirit reassuring her, a silent promise that the time for her to wear this ring had finally come.

When he slowly withdraws, a final breath gliding over her throat, and releases her, stepping back to the dinner table, she feels an icy chill steal through the veins, freezing the blood. It is not the first time she’s felt so cold, so empty without his closeness. Each time simply serves to reinforce the point, mercilessly and with brutal intensity. Her skin feels alive, electrified, crawling over the bones with unchecked urgency; the cells shriek silently for sustenance, for the press of him against her, where skin meets and bodies believe they are joined as one, never meant to be parted.

He extinguishes the flames, not with a simple exhale, but with bare fingers, dry and unprotected, pinching the flame lifeless and plunging the room in near darkness. Even so, she finds his outstretched hand and accepts it, then follows while he leads her. His movements are far more subdued, calm and collected, in place of hasty lust. He guides her as she imagines Hades would Persephone: with a gentleman’s grace and the devil’s own desire licking flames in his gaze.

The bedroom door doesn’t need to be locked, but he does anyway. When her fingers go for the zipper of her dress, he holds up a hand. She wonders if this is how he directs Tanesha, and Yin, and the others: with silent direction, wordless gestures. She wonders if it makes her angry, to be treated like one of his leather-clad mistresses. When he glides both hands upward, from hip to waist to the slope of her ribcage, rippling fabric beneath his fingers and heat tingling a path down her spine, she can’t find anger amongst the swirl of emotions pooling deep in her core.

She waits for him to cut the dress away, or perhaps rip it free with bare hands. He does neither. Before her astonished gaze, he undresses her like a lady’s maid; piece by piece, each carefully drawn aside and left on the floor. When he lifts one ankle at a time and slips her feet free of silver heels, she has an absurd recollection of the Cinderella tale, only in reverse.

His hands splay wide over her legs, ascending with languid warmth in his touch and fire in his gaze; she understands the unspoken and lowers to the mattress with a quiet sigh. His lips return to her skin, marking invisible paths up one leg while his fingers make the same over the other. She flinches when he finds the elongated markings at her inner thighs, where flesh was cleaved away without permission, without grace, and with crude technique. Her slight recoil doesn’t stop him.

“Victor…” his name shudders free of her lips and tongue, lingering on the air; her hands descend slowly to find him with blind touch. His skin burns beneath splayed fingertips…or is she the one burning? She can’t tell.

He is gentle, and yet merciless; he draws her to the brink, then releases her, then brings her there once again, retracts, and again…and again…and again. She doesn’t sob, not aloud, but the tears streak her cheeks in warm tracks, and each breath is tight in her chest. It’s too much. It’s not enough. It’s…

The house is empty. They have no neighbors. She doesn’t care when her release erupts with a scream, wrapped around his name.

When he straightens, it’s with a tiger’s speed and agility, lurching forward with one hand catching him atop the mattress and the other wrapped loose around her throat. His eyes are dark, alive, and hungry. Her body responds with dizzying intensity, clutching his shoulders and pulling him to her, to share everything that is hers and inviting, begging for it to be his.

“Do you know,” he whispers, thumb grazing her pulse, then pressing down with the barest hint of danger attached, “what you _do_ to me?”

“ _Show me._ ” she answers, slipping into Russian with natural grace and drinking in the way his expression comes alive, the way he contracts and his eyes widen and his pupils dilate and his throat flexes around the next breath. She shifts onto her knees, hands at his chest, fingers calmly tending to his clothes with expert swiftness, the kind that now comes naturally after plenty of practice. “ _Show me, once and for all, who you are. Show me the man I love. Show me the man I am going to marry._ ”

_Am._ Not, _might_ , or _could_ , or _wish to_. _Am_. The man she _is_ going to marry. There is finality in her voice and in her words; there are no more questions and there is no more tentative hesitancy. This is the final, irrevocable answer to his proposal. She answered him, in a way, by christening him _husband_ before the entire clan, but she will also be the first to admit it was less a legitimate answer or romantic sentiment as much as it was to make a statement for the family: the man they deemed a “freak” and “oddity” ranked above all of them. Respect for him was not, nor ever would be, optional.

“ _Touch me._ ” He whispers, matching her Russian tongue with dark flames in his gaze. It is a gaze that lightly treads the line between madness and cool resolve. It makes her burn.

She takes her time, anchoring hands to his shoulders while her lips do most of the touching. As she has done many times before, and will yet do many more, she revives sensation in his marked flesh. No set is left untouched, from his upper torso to waist. The newest set, bearing only two, is nestled beneath his ribcage. She lingers over these for an extra minute, delicately lapping at skin broken only a day earlier. His fingers bury in her hair, clutching the strands like a lifeline; she can hear short and tight exhales escaping through clenched teeth.

With barely a coy expression to indicate her inspired course of action, her legs bend and lower to the floor, hands relocating to his hips, and she kisses a slow path down the invisible center of his torso. At his hips, she pauses, flicking her tongue across his skin at random, and lifts her eyes to meet his. The fire in his gaze is overwhelming; so real, so _alive_ , she thinks it might reach out and burn her skin.

“I am yours.” She breathes, thumbs resting in the hollow of his hips. “Claim me.”

His throat contracts with the next breath, and she thinks, even in shadows, she can see the erratic thrum of his pulse. The hand in her hair loosens the grip, realigns, and directs her mouth to him. The sound he makes, barely a second later, rattles her bones and coats her veins with fire. The three months of abstinence have come to blinding clarity, and her head is spinning with reawakened need for him. _All_ of him.

“You are mine.” Victor whispers, and in the dark his voice is the tiger’s growl, no longer fit for a man. “You will always be mine. You’re mine as long as you live. You’re mine to the day you die. _I_ decide when that day comes, and when it does, I will hold you in my arms, I will kiss you one last time, run my fingers through your hair, through each strand of silk, pull, pull, pull…until your neck snaps. It will be quick. It will be painless. I will hold you through it, until you grow cold. And then your mark will be the one that opens my throat and bleeds me dry.”

She shivers. The raw tone of his voice, the painful grip he has on her hair that almost makes her want to stop but doesn’t, because he’s touching her and it’s too much of a relief to inspire escape, and the unchecked urgency of his movements…she feels tears prick at her closed eyes, though she can’t be sure of their origins.

“You will not die.” He continues, fingers weaving deeper within her dark locks; it’s incredibly unfair that he remains so damned lucid when her mind is nearly shattered under the burden of unfulfilled need and a desire that’s steadily ripping her apart at the seams. “Not until it’s time, Iris. For _both_ of us. If anyone tries to take you, between now and then…” he sighs, exhales slowly, as if the thought alone brings him ecstasy, “…the Devil himself can’t fathom what I will do to them. If they bring you to Death’s door, I will bring you back. If I have to drag you back through the depths of Hell itself, I will bring you back. You will _not_ leave me. You will _never_ leave me. You… _Iris…_ ”

There it is: proof that he’s just as far gone as she is. But he doesn’t let her finish. Despite her efforts, he uses the grip on her hair and another on her upper arm to pull her upright. Her legs are shaky at best, and she leans into him for support while her fingers claw at the back of his neck and drag his mouth to hers. He responds in kind: too much teeth, bruising lips, and hands that can’t touch fast enough, press deep enough, claim enough skin with developing bruises and frantic grasps of flesh on flesh.

He presses her flat to the mattress, hands rapidly ascending and capturing hers in a vice grip. It’s unlike him, to deny himself use of the hands so quickly, to refuse them both the chance to touch and explore each other. She opens her mouth, perhaps to ask, or to implore for her hands’ freedom when her need to touch him is almost too much to bear. The words, whatever they might have been, never come. His body is aligned to hers, molded as one without full completion, and the friction generated by his deliberation motions cuts her rational thought as effortlessly as a knife does human flesh. The connection between their hands is her only anchor, the only source of stability while she’s dragged deeper and deeper inside a swirling storm of desire, the kind few are ever meant to weather, and her fingers violently clench down between his, nails pressing to leave little crescents in their wake.

She thinks this must be how the female serpent feels in the ardor of her mate’s coils: bodies entwined, sliding against each other, desire burning raw and hot between them, limbless, connected, inseparable for this moment, their intimacy a dance and war all at once. She wonders as to the workings of a serpent’s mind, if the female feels cool detachment towards the act, or if she loses herself to the fiery need for her mate, all of him, all he can give and more. A need that is too much for one person to bear, quietly contained in public view, and under the cover of darkness becomes a supernova, sucking them in, stripping them down to the bare bones, shattering both apart and sparing nothing.

In darkness, she can see nothing, but she _feels_ everything: his legs moving with the kind of agility and steady grace that only a true predator possesses in the night, shifting around hers, hips aligning to hips, and then she loses a sharp cry when he makes their union complete. She sobs, not from pain, but simply to release some of the need clawing at her throat. No. No, there is no pain here. The soft upward curve of relief to her lips, pressed at a strange angle to his chin, expresses as much.

His face presses deep, buries within the salt-tinged crook of her throat, drinking in her taste and scent, each breath a sharp, hot burst. He remains motionless for a torturous moment, a moment in which she can do nothing but _feel_ : his skin, the tight lines and etched muscles pressed tight to her curves, the drumming beat of his heart where it meets hers and creates a melody all its own, the way he feels inside her, completing her and claiming her and—

“What?” she whispers, the solitary word trembling past her lips when the moonlight peeks in, flashes through the darkness, and illuminates the way he’s staring at her. Staring as though he’s never seen her before. As though this was some abstract dream from which he just awoke, only to find it was very real.

“Victor?” she presses, albeit with great anxiety attached, when he doesn’t answer. He’s never looked at her this way before. Never…

The moon retreats, plunging the room in darkness again, and he exhales slowly. Then she feels his mouth ghosting across her shoulder, along her throat, and then his lips rest at her ear. 

“I’m in love with you.” He murmurs, kissing her there lightly. And then, before she can formulate even a mediocre response, he sets and begins an urgent pace. The only sounds she’s able to make now are broken gasps and breathless cries.

_I’m in love with you._ It sounds like a vow, a sentiment, and an apology, wrapped securely in five simple words. Words that, alone, possess no real value or strength. Woven together, as they are right now…she thinks they might destroy her, then revive her like a phoenix born from ashes into flames. _I’m in love with you. I’m in love with you._

In his ear, what little coherency remains translates to loose fragments of Russian, of French, pouring past her lips. She makes promises. She reaffirms agreement to his vow, to the commands he’s set upon her, and then she returns them.

“ _You will not leave me._ ” she echoes, mouth pressed loosely sometimes to his ear, sometimes against his jaw. “ _You are mine. You belong to me. If they harm you, if they bring you to the brink of extinction, I will bring you back. And you will not fight me. You will not refuse me. You will **always** come back to me, Victor. Always. Always._ ”

He groans, a violent sound erupting from the depths of his chest, and she nearly screams at the renewed way he takes her. Beneath them, the mattress protests with loud creaks, and the headboard leaves its mark on the wall. The bedcovers slip and slide around her, against her skin in ripples of silk and cotton. His lips are on hers, sucking every last breath from her lungs, teeth leaving imprints on tender flesh, tongue dancing a furious pace with hers. When she rips free, it’s only to draw air into starving lungs, and she sinks teeth into his lower lip before fully parting.

Through the windows, pouring past curtains, moonlight again casts itself into the scene and pools in his eyes. Her heartbeat falters, stutters to a sudden halt, and she wonders if perhaps she might actually die in this moment…but no. It’s not time, and it’s not by his hand. She will not die, though she could, just looking at the moon’s radiance in blue depths.

_Tiger, tiger, burning bright in the forests of the night…_

She vaguely hears her voice, crying out without shame, wanton and frantic. _More. **More.** Do not stop. Harder._ She begs him. She begs him to break her, to fuse their bodies together, to sew himself within her flesh and hers within his. She begs him to do the impossible, by all concepts of physics and human capacity, because nothing seems impossible or improbable right now. She needs him. She must have him, all of him, every last piece of him. Enough is never enough.

_…What immortal hand or eye…_

Victor takes her hands and brings them around him, to his back, then takes hold of the bedcovers for balance. “Touch me.” he breathes. “Grab onto me. Dig into my skin. Cut me. Mark me. _Scar_ me. Let me feel you all over. Every…waking…moment,” each word is punctuated with a deliberate thrust; she whimpers and clutches at him, “…let me feel you. Come on, sweet girl. Do it. Give it to me. Rip me open. Make me _bleed_.”

He will be the death of her sanity, one day. She’s sure of it. Convinced of it beyond a doubt.

“ _Yes…_ ” his entire body contracts with the first descent of her nails into his skin, right above his shoulder blades; each thrust opens lines up and down the skin, “Yes, yes, yes…don’t stop. More, Iris. I need more.”

She doesn’t stop. She leaves marks along his shoulders, down the spinal curve to his hips, where she gouges the skin after a particularly enthusiastic response from him. She locks her fingers in place there, holding him tight to her and anchoring herself to something solid and real when all sense of stability has been ripped out from under her.

“Iris.” He growls, chest tight, fingers locked tight in the bedcovers beside her head. _He’s close…_ “My girl. My mate. My love. My bride. My wife. _Mine_.”

“ _Inside me, my tiger._ ” She whispers, lips parting in quiet satisfaction at the way he groans, again, just to hear her native tongue trickling inside his ear. “ _Let me feel you. Let go. Give yourself to me, right now, like this. I—_ ”

She doesn’t finish, not when electricity rips a vicious path through her overly-sensitized frame, sparking fire in her veins for an excruciating moment that seems to have no end. She distantly hears herself scream, again. Then his hips crush to hers, bruising in a way that may leave no mark but she’ll certainly feel it for at least a week, and her scream trails off into a broken sob of relief in this perfect moment of completion. This suspended moment when he solidifies his claim over her, and she accepts without hesitation.

_…could frame thy fearful symmetry?_

***

The sunlight paints a gentle picture after the prior evening’s reckless urgency. He awakens to a room highlighted in shades of gold, half-covered with warm sheets that carry Iris’ scent, and the sounds of a shower running in the adjacent bathroom. The hour is much later than he’s accustomed to rising, but they certainly exhausted each other last night and being an early riser is a losing proposition compared to burying deep into luxury and her nearness.

He stretches slowly; the burn of unhealed wounds scattered across his back sparks nerves, and he quietly purrs satisfaction. His skin, forever scarred by his mate…the sting is sweet, as are the memories of how he got each and every one. Maybe he can persuade her to reopen one or two, under similar circumstances.

He grins at the thought.

The bathroom door opens, steam lazily curling outward to pave a ghostly path as Iris follows. She is a vision to behold: skin damp and lightly flushed, hair a wet mass of spiraled ink hanging heavy around her frame, robe tied loosely and baring plenty for the wanting eye. But her expression is strange: trepidation, nervous pondering…lost in her thoughts.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, propped on one arm. Silence greets him, her eyes still downcast while fingers slowly card through her hair. Idle curiosity deepens to a frown on his face. “Iris?”

Her eyes flick up to his face, as though she just remembered he was there, with her, in the same room, and she swallows before lowering down to the mattress. Her limbs carefully arrange together, tucked at her side. Apparently she’s trying to find things to do before answering the question, and he wonders if he might have to resort to more pointed measures.

But, no, not today.

“Do you…” her voice trails, fingers slowly drifting down and resting at her stomach, “Do you think we made a baby?”

A child, wrapped in Iris’ arms, giggling with each kiss. Tiny arms looping tight around its mother’s neck, returning little kisses. _I love you, Mommy._ Iris, smiling, gaze adoring and tender, unashamed delight, untainted devotion for her child. _Their_ child. A boy, or maybe a girl. A blonde, or perhaps a head of thick dark curls. Blue eyes, large and innocent, gazing upon Iris with love. 

Little feet running across the floor, barely audible; hands grabbing at his trouser leg. _Carry me, Daddy!_ Blue eyes wide and imploring, arms full of one book or many, scurrying forward. _Read to me, Daddy._ A small figure waiting for him, darting to the door when he enters, _Daddy! Daddy!_

_Daddy._

“Is that what you want?” he asks, negotiating his way to a fully-upright position and extending one arm for her. Relief washes over her expression, and he can only wonder what she might have been expecting, or fearing, from his reaction. She quickly closes the distance, curling tight against him with both arms looped around his waist. Her hair smells like vanilla and honey.

“Yes.” She murmurs. “With you.”

He rolls his eyes for a pronounced moment. “Well, _that_ is certainly a relief.” He replies, kissing her crown. “Because if you were contemplating procreation with someone else…I would have to do some very, very, _very_ unpleasant things to him.”

Iris laughs softly, kissing a place on his shoulder. “ _After_ you make me your wife.”

“Now you’re just being picky.”

“Am I?” she tilts her head up, offering a full view of a very mischievous gleam in her eyes. “Because I thought you might be rather eager to start the honeymoon.”

“Hmm.” He kisses her head again, twice. “We’ve been doing this for a while. I might have to get creative.”

“Fortunately,” she brushes a light kiss over his lower lip, “my husband-to-be has a _very_ active imagination.”

That he does. That he does indeed.


End file.
